Boise Airport sees strong rebound from pandemic. Are rising ticket prices a threat?
Commercial air travel is up in the Treasure Valley, and so are flight prices, as a combination of inflation and fuel costs presents a financial double whammy that stands to cool the industry’s resurgence with the decline of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Boise Airport’s count of more than 291,000 passengers in February was 11% above its pre-pandemic five-year average for the month, according to airport data. The second month of the year is typically the airport’s slowest for air travel, but last month’s passenger total made it its second-busiest February on record.
What’s more, this year’s combined total for January and February of nearly 576,000 passengers rivals the 579,000 passengers who flew through Boise in the first two months of 2019. That year remains the airport’s all-time high for travel, with more than 4.1 million passengers.
“This continuation in demand for passenger travel is another indication of the airport’s strong rebound,” Shawna Samuelson, a Boise Airport spokesperson, told the Idaho Statesman by email. “Our region’s strong return to air travel has been noticed by our airline partners, with many increasing capacity available for passengers and offering additional routes and nonstop destinations.”
Two low-cost airlines this month announced expansion plans to Boise. In late May, Avelo Airlines will add twice-weekly flights to and from Hollywood Burbank Airport in Southern California, while Spirit Airlines will launch service in August with a daily nonstop flight back and forth from Las Vegas.
Rising ticket prices could slow rebound
Lurking beneath the commercial air industry’s recovery, however, are economic challenges. Inflation in the U.S. has hit a 40-year high and the sanctions tied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have increased the cost of oil — each contributing to rising fares to hop a flight.
Jet fuel prices are hovering at about $4 per gallon as a result of the war’s impact on the global oil market. At the start of the year, the price was $2.30 a gallon, according to the Argus U.S. Jet Fuel Index.
The fuel hike has yet to wholly reach the pocketbooks of Americans returning to the sky. That could change soon, as air carriers pass the additional costs to consumers by boosting ticket prices, threatening to depress the passenger counts on increasingly full flights.
Frequent fliers are facing sticker shock when booking their favored routes nonetheless. Airfares last month were up nearly 13% over this same time last year, according to the U.S. Consumer Price Index.
Rising ticket prices are largely associated with simple supply and demand, and an inflation rate of about 8%, which together are driving up the costs of most goods and services, said Mike Boyd, president of the Colorado-based aviation consulting firm Boyd Group International.
In March, the average U.S. domestic round-trip flight cost $330, which is 7% above 2019 prices, according to travel app Hopper. The flight-booking company projects ticket prices to rise another 10% through May, to $360 for a round-trip domestic flight.
Travelers shouldn’t get hung up on the average month-over-month or year-over-year increases of plane tickets as commercial air carriers raise prices, though, Boyd said. Such metrics are somewhat arbitrary and unreliable because of the variety of routes and destinations, he said.
“The fact of the matter is the average price of a round-trip ticket is just a bad number. But it is going up,” Boyd said. “This is not like a Big Mac or grapefruit or a gallon of gas. Air travel is just different, because of the length of haul, with some people taking longer trips and several other factors.”
Airlines cut some routes
Thinner profit margins, including from higher employee costs, are creating concerns among air carriers that the growing ticket prices will lead some customers to skip the annual summer vacation. That’s in spite of two years of pent-up demand during the pandemic.
Some airlines have already cut seasonal flights at the Boise Airport to save costs. Allegiant Air scrapped its summer flight to Nashville for 2022, while Southwest Airlines pulled three routes — Chicago-Midway, Dallas-Love Field and Orange County, California — out of the market, at least for now.
“The Boise Airport understands that our airline partners make business decisions around their schedules,” Samuelson said. “We are disappointed these routes will not be offered this summer and hope to work with our partners to get them back soon.”
Allegiant also cut its twice-weekly route between Boise and Las Vegas for the month of May, the result of “an unprecedented labor shortage (that) is currently affecting the entire commercial aviation industry,” said Hector Mejia, an Allegiant Air spokesperson. The discount airline’s Las Vegas flight returns to Boise in June, when Alaska Airlines debuts its own daily route to and from Sin City.
Southwest also maintains a daily nonstop route between Boise and Las Vegas.
Spirit is scheduled to increase competition to Las Vegas on Aug. 5, when it becomes Boise Airport’s ninth commercial air carrier. The airport will offer nonstop service to 27 different destinations by that time.
